Ye olde raking injury

Ah, spring.

It's the time of year when my back muscles go "oh yeah, raking! I totally forgot about that!"

It's the time of year where the cats plot out new places to poop in my garden. Toxomoplasmosis, here we come. Guess I should be wearing gloves...

The season where I have no idea what to wear. I'm underdressed in the morning, and overdressed by lunchtime. (sigh). My life is so difficult.

I have raked and raked. Then I raked some more. And a friend raked too, the entire yard, but then I had to rake again. And I will be raking tonight, and probably raking tomorrow night as well. The problem? We haven't mowed the lawn since approximately July 22, 2005. We don't have grass, we have hay. I could bale it up and feed a horse for a week. In fact, we have horses around, perhaps I could rent one for a few days to avoid raking. If I could get a set of four horse-sized aerator sandals, we'd be all set.

But as it is, I have the sandals, and I have been raking like a mad fool to try and get grass to grow where once there was only hay. This weekend, I will be spreading seeds as well, in the rain because I don't want to tax our well too heavily, and because I am lazy that way and actually enjoy the smell of wet dirt and grass.

I haven't started photographing the garden yet, but I'm going to have to take some 'before' shots this week because I predictably have a lot of work to do. On the horizon this year? Behold the following list:

1. Terrace the other side of my front hill, adding to the work I did last year (MAY).
2. Build up and add to my shade foundation garden (MAY).
3. Fill a hole in our yard with dirt and plant grass seed on it, so that we can string up our badminton/volleyball net (APRIL/MAY).
4. Get some flagstones for in front of the shed and around the firepit (MAY/JUNE).
5. Build (or at least plan) a basic platform for a treehouse. If built this summer, we could get a mosquito net and sleep in it on hot nights. How romantic is that?
6. Plant and maintain a cohesive bunch of containers on the deck, possibly containing herbs and/or veggies, but definitely colourful annuals and vines (MAY).
7. Get the lawn into working order, try to eradicate the creeping jenny - organically of course (ONGOING).
8. Make some kind of progress on the border garden (ONGOING).
9. Re-do the compost bin. Possibly buy one of those black ones (JULY).
10. Maintain a healthy veggie garden all the way through the season.

I think this list is very doable. That's in addition to replacing the roof over our kitchen (over the shade garden, grrr) ourselves, finishing the back room, staining our staircase, and renovating the bathroom all before July. Hey, it's gotta rain sometime!

I've said this before in this space, but there's nothing better than coming home from work, grabbing a cold beer or a glass of wine, and wandering the garden, puttering here and there, coddling the plants. That season has already begun.

Projects up the Wahoo

I have been a busy little bee these last few months, building, the bookshelves in that back room, and an overhaul of that space in general.
This is a picture of the shelves mid-stock, after my mother dropped off every book I've ever owned, which she's been saving in boxes in the basement since I moved out.

These puppies are made out of pine (uprights) and MDF (shelves). That was fun, as it seems that "12 inch" pine really means 11 inches, and "12 inch" MDF really IS 12 inches. I wish they would standardize that sort of thing.




Here's a BEFORE photo:



Anyway, between those shelves and the Lucky Clover sweater from Stitch N' Bitch Nation, my fingers have been busy lately. I am almost done the sweater; I hope to sew it up this weekend.

Also on my horizon are a number of babies. Spring has sprung and there are mummies everywhere - my friend in BC is expecting in a month, my friend here in town is expecting this summer, Angelina Jolie is getting ready to burst, my my there are babies everywhere. I would say it's something in the water, except that I drink a ton of water and am getting nowhere in my quest. I don't think that's how babies are made. In better news, I have learned that I have a standard body temperature of about 36.2. What a freak I am. Truely a cold fish.

My Gro-op is in full swing in the basement. The seeds are reluctant to start this year (can't I conceive ANYTHING?), i don't know if I just need new packets of seeds, or to stop trying to save them from the peppers I buy at the store. So far I've got two kinds of tomatoes, yellow zucchini, thai basil, tarragon, and oh my, i guess I really didn't put much thought into it this year huh. I need to get started on my cukes, pumpkins (from last year's surprise pumpkins! Yay!), regular italian basil for pesto, and maybe some nicotiana. I have eggplants, ground cherries, hot cherry peppers and red peppers on the go as well but I've not seen hide nor hair of them. I also have some of these puppies waiting to germinate, we'll see what happens here. Perhaps I can grow enough of these so that I won't have to repaint my house this year.

I have also started a number of seeds from a dragon fruit, slices of which I found on a chi-chi poo-poo deli tray at work. I picked the little seeds out before eating the fruit, and soaked them in a paper towel until they germinated. Now the little seedlings are all poking out of the dirt, just happy to be alive. I am excited, and i see future gifts of Dragonfruit seedlings on the horizon for all of my family and friends. I have probably 35 seedlings so far.

I guess that's all the news that's fit to tell. Nothing's going on in the garden yet, though a few perennials are poking their little heads out of the ground. I have to re-seed the lawn because it's currently a mole-torn disaster, but it needed it anyway. My lawn is terrible. I am thinking clover.

Stay tuned for more seedling excitement, plus possibly some news on that Lucky Clover sweater!